


uncharted territory

by nilchance



Series: ain't this the life [20]
Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Brotherly Bonding, M/M, Masturbation, Road Trips, eventual spicykustard, kustard - Freeform, offscreen fellcest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-24
Updated: 2019-01-24
Packaged: 2019-10-15 15:22:38
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,319
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17531270
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nilchance/pseuds/nilchance
Summary: Sans is good at running from his problems even when he doesn't have a shortcut.





	uncharted territory

**Author's Note:**

> content warnings in the endnotes

_The void again. The darkness is on Gaster's side. There is no Edge at Sans’s back this time. There is no one coming for him, not that they could find him in the infinite black. Sans is alone._

_Gaster towers over him. Sans is on his knees although there is nothing to kneel on, or maybe he's a child again. He can't look down at himself to be sure. He can't move, trapped like a fly in amber._

__After everything I have done for you, _Gaster says._

_Sans wants to laugh. It's caught in his throat, choking him. He sees the ridiculousness of that statement for the stupidly blatant manipulation that it is but some part of him still cringes from Gaster's disapproval like a dog waiting for a kick._

_Maybe Gaster sees the bitter laughter written on his face. There is a microscopic tightening around his eyes. Temper. Emotion. Loss of control. For Gaster, he might as well be screaming in rage._

__You brought this on yourself, _Gaster says._

_His hand pushes into Sans's chest. Through his ribs. There is no pain, but the wrongness of it is worse, the violation of Gaster touching his soul. Sans would scream if he could in animal terror, and all he feels when Gaster's hand crushes his soul to dust is relief that it’s over--_

Sans opens his eyes.

He isn't screaming. He isn't breathing either, his throat choked so tight that he couldn't even whimper if he tried. He grabs for his chest and finds no clean surgical hole there, but it's not until he shoves a shaking hand under his ribs and feels a spark of dull pain as he touches his soul that he can take a deep breath.

He dropped the collar in his sleep. It's on the floor beside the mattress. He stares at it, feeling faintly betrayed.

Just a nightmare. It's his brain trying to wrangle with his issues. It wasn't real. Gaster is in the void. He can't get into Sans's dreams like the villain from a bad human slasher film. Sans is safe and he's fine and he needs to get over it.

Right. And he thought Gaster was dead until a week ago. Maybe Gaster _can_ get in his head. Maybe Gaster could stroll out of the void any time he wants. There’s jack shit that Sans can do to stop him.

Yeah. This isn’t helping him calm down. He shoves the thought out of his mind.

When he can breathe, he grabs his phone and checks the time. 2 AM, dead in the middle of the night. No way Papyrus is asleep yet. His brother maxes out at three hours of sleep a night. Sans could go downstairs and watch TV with him. Being near Papyrus helps him shake off nightmares like nothing else, especially given how often they're about losing him one way or another.

But no, the worst of the adrenaline is fading. He could maybe get back to sleep without falling right back into the same nightmare if he takes a couple minutes for his subconscious to calm the fuck down. He's got an audiobook by Hawking on his phone.

Or he could jerk off. Jerking off seems like less effort. Heaven fucking forbid he do something educational. He might learn something.

Sans starts to slide his hand under the waistband of the extremely old pajama pants, the provenance of which he can't exactly remember, and then stops and glances at the collar beside the bed. It's stupid, but it feels like it's watching him, like trying to have sex with a cat staring judgmentally from the other end of an alley. Not that he’s speaking from personal experience or anything.

"Nope," he says. He grabs a t-shirt from the nearest clothes pile and tosses it over the collar, hiding it from view.

With that resolved, he settles into the mattress and reaches into his pants. The bones of his pelvis are still a little cool to the touch. He rubs the very top of his sacrum, coaxing warmth into the bone. He can feel the last of the nightmare like a shadow looming at his back when he closes his eyes, so he keeps them open and fixed on the ceiling.

He mentally pages through the usual spank bank as he works his way down his sacrum. The one and only orgy he ever attended at somebody’s apartment in college. That glory hole in a bar in the capital. The fantasy about that stern math professor who gently turned him down where he’d bent Sans over his desk and used him to get off instead. That weird one about a fucking machine. None of them appeal.

What flashes through his head like a lightning strike is brand new material. An alley. Red holding him against the wall, hands tight around his wrists, his grin cruel.

Sans pauses, brows raising. Wow. He and his libido need to have words. But it definitely caught his interest; there’s the first tingle of diffuse magic around his fingers, settling into the cradle of his pelvis. He stirs his fingers through it, then runs his fingertip around the rim of one of the holes in his sacrum as he thinks about it.

They’re in the alley beside Grillby’s. Anybody could find them here and see Sans with his shorts rucked around his ankles-- no, fuck it, this is a fantasy. He might as well be completely naked. Red’s got his legs apart and is grinding his clothed thigh against the base of Sans’s pelvis, giving him a little but not enough.

The magic is hot around his fingers now, impatient. Sans draws his hand back and lets his magic form what it wants, which is apparently a cock. He’s got lotion around somewhere but he licks his palm instead and uses that to ease the way. There’s still a lot of friction but that’s just fine.

So. The alley. Red tells Sans to be good for him and stay quiet. (His fantasy can be embarrassingly honest about what he gets off on. Nobody’s business but his own.) Somehow Red loses his pants along the way without letting go of Sans’s wrists. Somehow Red is in him, fucking him slow and deep and dreamlike. Red’s mouth is at his throat, just as likely to bite as to lick, leaving marks, claiming him--

“Fuck,” Sans mutters, kind of appalled with himself. But his cock is so hard already it’s twitching, precome wetting the loose circle of his fingers. He tightens his grip just a little and yeah, that’s even better.

Red has him. Nowhere to go. He just has to take it, the brick rough against his back. Anyone could be watching them. Someone _is_ watching them, watching him be fucked like this, approving. Someone is talking to him in a low, filthy voice, asking him if he likes it, if it’s good, if he’s gonna come like this, sweetheart, and it’s not Red’s mouth at his throat, it’s not Red deep inside him, Edge is--

The orgasm hits him like a suckerpunch to the back of the head. He chokes out a noise and spills over his hand, the come searing hot. He yanks his hand away from his dick a few seconds too late, his body still shuddering. He lays there with his wet hand held away from him, panting for breath, staring at the ceiling for answers that aren’t coming.

(No, but he sure did, didn’t he.)

He was thinking of Edge.

He was thinking of Edge when he came.

He--

What the fuck.

Sure, maybe his brain is just randomly betraying him again. What else is new? But he knows himself. He’s thought of stuff he doesn’t want to during sex before but it’s always enough to throw off his groove. The last thing he thought before he came was that Edge was fucking him open. That was what did it as much as the hand around his dick.

Even now, the thought is enough to make Sans’s dick give a last interested twitch. But it’s stupid so it doesn’t get a vote.

The weird thought he had when he was high that he and Edge should watch Red jerk off on the couch together, like totally platonic bros. The fact that Red mentioning Edge coming to watch them fuck made his cunt tighten. And now this. Rule of threes. This is a thing.

He wants Edge.

As tempting as it is to smother himself in the mattress, he wipes his hand clean on his shirt and crawls out of bed. He tosses his clothes in the vague direction of the ‘seriously, Papyrus, I’ll wash these myself’ pile, gets into his shorts and a t-shirt because he’s not going back to bed, and goes to the bathroom to wash his hands two or three times just to be sure he’s not wearing an eternal stain of jizz and bad decisions. Then he goes downstairs.

Papyrus is sitting on the couch, frowning at his phone in deep concentration. He seems to be taking notes on a pad of paper beside him. When he sees Sans, he gives a sympathetic wince and moves his stuff so Sans can sit beside him. He probably thinks Sans had a garden variety nightmare.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Papyrus asks. “Or to have some hot milk? I have procedures for comforting traumatized brothers prepared.”

“Can we get out of here?” Sans asks.

Papyrus blinks at him, nonplussed, minus all the pluses. “It’s two o’clock in the morning. Most businesses are closed.”

“We could just get in your car and drive for a while,” Sans says. There’s brittle desperation in his voice. “Just you and me. The wind in our hair. Two cool guys on the road. Or I could just borrow your car, if you don’t wanna come. It’s fine.”

Papyrus considers him. “Like a road trip?”

Well, Sans wasn’t thinking that far ahead. Road trips mean money, and he’s not working, and--

And he needs to get out of here because the walls are closing in.

“Yeah,” Sans says. “You don’t have work until Monday. Maybe… maybe we could go to that place by the ocean. It’s off-season so we won’t get completely bilked.”

And Papyrus, who’s morally opposed to vacations, who has responsibilities, who knows him, nods and stands up. “Luckily, I have a bag packed for shenanigans.”

Relief is too small of a word for what he feels. He doesn't want to do this alone. Sans says, “Good call.”

“Well, if you’re going to run away from your problems, what kind of brother would I be if I made you do it by yourself?” With a dramatic flourish, the only kind of flourish Papyrus has, he pulls a pair of sunglasses from his inventory and puts them on. “You need a getaway driver.”

***

Monsters tend to stay together. After the barrier was broken, they mostly clustered around Mt. Ebott or the embassy and even the water monsters like Undyne didn’t go as far as the ocean, which means several confused gas station attendants and the employees of one all-night diner staring in wonder (or possibly horror) at Papyrus. Sans wonders for a moment what they’d make of Edge. Then his mind jerks away from the thought like he touched a hot stove.

They make it to the resort town around dawn. It’s dead, all the tourists gone back to wherever tourists go. They get a cheap room at a hotel by the beach and stagger out onto the sands to watch the sun coming up over the choppy waves. Papyrus takes off his boots and goes out to stand ankle deep in the ocean, hands on his hips, looking satisfied with himself. This probably crosses off something in the bucket list of what normal people are supposed to do that Papyrus keeps in his head. The Atlantic Ocean: done. Crappy ill-advised road trip: done.

Papyrus turns to him and says, “Well, we’re here.”

“Looks like it,” Sans says.

“My feet are freezing.”

“You’re the one who decided to stand in it.”

“It’s the bracing kind of mild agony,” Papyrus says. “Are you going to tell me what this is about?”

“The ocean?” Sans asks. “Wow. That’s a deep question. I mean, what are _any_ of us about?”

Papyrus sighs. “So the answer is no, you’re not going to tell me anything.”

Sans looks away. Haltingly, he says, “I need to think about some stuff.”

“Actually think or do your best not to think until cold, cruel reality forces you to?” Papyrus asks.

Sans snorts. “Wow. Just gonna call me on my shit, huh?”

“I’m uniquely qualified.”

“Yeah, I know you are.” There’s a sharp breeze coming in off the ocean. Sans shoves his hands in his pockets, feels the collar, and yanks them out like he was burned. Papyrus raises a brow and Sans gives a sheepish shrug. “Anyway, stuff I need to think about or not, this is nice. Just you and me hanging out together. Nothing complicated. No drama, no kid, no E--”

He stops. After a long moment, Papyrus prompts, “No Cherry and Edgy Me?”

Sans sighs. “Yeah. I just, y’know, I needed...”

When Sans doesn’t finish, Papyrus says, “Time to scream internally because you’re having an emotion?”

“Yeah, that.”

“Then you can have it. Or you can scream externally if you want, if you muffle it in a pillow so people don’t think I’m murdering you.” Papyrus gives him a pat on the shoulder. “I’m here for you, brother.”

Sans grins up at him. “Thanks, Paps.”

“I’d prefer to be here for you inside where there’s a breakfast buffet.”

“Y’know, that’s fair.”

***

Sans sends the text to Red around noon, as he’s waiting for Papyrus to come out from the boardwalk arcade. He’s got a while; Papyrus is pretty intense about skee-ball. The text is short and sweet: _going out of town for a few days. i’ll be back before the next episode of soul train. don’t freak out._

He’s not really surprised when his phone rings. He picks up, tucking the phone between his shoulder and his skull. “I said don’t freak out.”

“What are you doing?” Red sounds genuinely curious, almost amused.

“Right now? Listening to an asshole.”

“Uh-huh. So what spooked you this time?”

Sans idly picks at the lingering stickiness of salt water taffy on his fingers. “A guy can’t decide to take a couple days off?”

“You were dying a week ago.”

“Aren’t we all?”

“Sans.” There’s finally an edge in Red’s voice. Sans hit the end of Red’s limited patience pretty fast. “Cut the bullshit. Are you coming back or not?”

Sans blinks, raising his eyes to the horizon like he can somehow read Red’s expression that way. “I said I was, dude.”

“I’m not talking about--” Red exhales loud enough that it briefly blows out the speakers. “Fuck this. I’ll see you in a couple days when you get your shit together.”

“We’re not done,” Sans says before Red can hang up. “You and me. Whatever the fuck we’re doing. If that’s what you’re asking.”

A moment of silence so long that he thinks Red is just going to disconnect the call to make a point. Then Red says, “Okay. So you just need a couple days to get your head on straight.”

“As straight as it gets,” Sans says. “It’s been a long couple of weeks. Got some stuff I gotta deal with.”

Red snorts. “I guess that’s a step up from repress and deny. Woulda been nice of you to give me a heads up before you skipped town. You coulda been goddamn anywhere by the time I-- well, whatever.”

That’s not an unfair point, considering what happened the last time Sans disappeared. “Sorry.”

“Shit, it’s not like you need my permission. You’re a free bitch. Besides, you can make it up to me when you get back.”

The promise in those words makes Sans sit up straighter, interested. “Really.”

“Yep. Enjoy your R&R, sweetheart. I got plans for you.” Red is grinning; Sans can hear it in his voice. “I’ll tell my bro you said hi.”

Red hangs up, leaving Sans staring blankly at the ocean with a kaleidoscope of lewd technicolor images playing in his mind of slick, blood-red tentacles and Red holding him down and--

( _Edge’s skilled, long-fingered hands. The scent of him, bone and leather and spicy soap, the solid heat of his body when Sans was pressed close against him_ )

Sans shakes the thought off like a dog shedding snow. Much like a dog shaking off snow, the thought stubbornly clings.

There’s the heavy, familiar thump of Papyrus’s boots behind him. When Sans turns around, Papyrus has his arms full of tickets and a smile on his face. “I have achieved my quest for skee-ball vengeance.”

“That’s awesome, bro. You know you can turn those in for prizes and stuff, right? All that paper and you might get...” Sans eyes the tickets, trying to remember that time he went with Frisk to the arcade in the mall. “A cheap eraser shaped like a palm tree, probably.”

“I’m in it for the glory. Don’t sully it with erasers.” Papyrus sits down beside him in the sand. “Help me fold these so I can put them in my inventory for posterity.”

“‘Kay,” Sans says.

In the end, he’s no help whatsoever.

***

A couple hours later, Sans gets the text from Edge: _Be safe._

Just that. No questions, but he gets the distinct feeling that Edge is being careful with him. Edge is usually careful with him, holding himself back like Sans is going to bolt if he pushes too hard. Probably a good call, considering that Sans is sitting on a beach five hours away because he had a masturbation misfire. He wonders what the hell Red told him. He wonders what he’s supposed to do. Edge won’t stop being nice to him, giving him things, taking care of him, treating him like someone who’s worth--

Nothing’s free. He should know that by now.

But Edge isn’t like that. Sans _knows_ he isn’t like that. Which is more terrifying than if he was because Sans has no idea what to do with it. His thoughts go around and around in the back of his head, chasing themselves, going nowhere.

Sans deletes the message.

***

That night, they find a karaoke bar. Papyrus’s idea. It’s the last night before the place shuts down for the season and it’s deserted aside from a single bartender, a bachelorette party of five and a few employees that get one good look at them and suddenly find reasons to hang around the bar and watch. All of the humans stare, aside from the bartender, who looks bored. Their expressions are of wide-eyed interest, not hostility, but Sans sits so he can keep an eye on them and the door and thinks about how to get Papyrus out of here as soon as possible.

His brother missed his calling as an ambassador. In less than ten minutes, they’re sitting with the bachelorette party, they know everybody’s names (including the employees), drinks have been ordered and cell phones have been taken out for selfies with the “sweet monsters we just met at the beach”. 

Things get a little rowdy after that.

“I just don’t know if he’s the one,” the bride-to-be says. Her name is apparently Carrie. She’s been sitting on Papyrus’s knee for the last hour, increasingly leaning against his shoulder. Her tiara somehow ended up on Papyrus’s head after three drinks. “I thought I’d know, you know? People know in the movies.”

Papyrus kindly pats her shoulder. There’s six empty shot glasses in front of him but he’s only just starting to look a little glassy-eyed because he’s a fucking tank. Who knew. Sure as hell not Sans because he’s never seen his brother drink before. “That seems like a bit of a problem, since you’re marrying him in a week?”

“I knowww,” Carrie moans, burying her face in her hands. 

Papyrus pats a little faster, like he’s trying to forestall crying through percussive maintenance. “It’s all right! Don’t be sad! Maybe you just need a little more time to figure it out!”

“But we can’t move the date,” Carrie says. “Our parents have paid for all these flowers and catering and the cake. That’s what you’re supposed to do.”

“Is it?” Papyrus asks. Monsters’ grasp of human culture was filtered through what fell into the dump, which, as it turns out, was not super accurate about what humans are actually like. The early days on the surface were kinda awkward. 

It’s a genuine question, but Carrie seems to take it as some kind of Socratic method thing. She lowers her hands and stares at Papyrus. Her eyeliner is smeared and she looks a little like a raccoon who got into the vodka. It’s cute. “You’re right. I’ve been doing what makes everybody else happy and it’s making me miserable.”

“Well, making other people happy is important,” Papyrus says. “But you’re also important! I bet they want to make sure you’re happy too.”

His boot nudges Sans’s shin under the table. Sans pointedly ignores him and takes a sip of the drink he’s been nursing all night.

“You should talk to them about it,” Papyrus says, making some significant eye contact with Sans. “Preferably before you almost die of terminal stubbornness and then have to have weekly appointments to have your soul fixed.”

“Yeah,” Carrie sighs. “Wait, what?”

“Marriage counseling,” Sans says.

“Oh.” Carrie stares fuzzily at the stage where her friends are performing the world’s most drunkenly enthusiastic rendition of Love Shack. “What if they’re mad?”

“Then they’re dicks,” Papyrus says. Sans chokes on his drink and Carrie leans precariously over to thump him on the back.

“You know what, Mr. Skellington?” Carrie says. “When you’re right, you’re right! ‘M gonna call and talk to my fiance right now!”

“That’s not actually my last name,” Papyrus says. “And also slightly offensive? But your heart is in the right place. Maybe wait until tomorrow, though, because you’re a teeeensy bit drunk right now.”

“Okay,” Carrie says agreeably. Then she leans over to whisper, “Fuck this picket fence shit, y’know? I wanna get married in Vegas. By Elvis.”

“What’s an Elvis?” Papyrus asks.

Sans orders another drink.

***

They’re back at the hotel, after pouring the ladies in a cab, when Sans finally says it. It’s later than late. They’re sitting on the hotel balcony. Their legs dangle through the railings over open space. The world is quiet aside from the slow rhythm of the waves, and it’s so much bigger than Sans could have ever thought.

Papyrus is beside him. There’s smudges of lipstick on his cheek and a little wayward body glitter scattered all over him. He’s drunk, relaxed and happy with the world, the subtle tension of the last few week gone. It’s good to see him like this even beyond the inherent hilarity of seeing Papyrus hammered, even if it’s a little worrying at the same time.

“I think I have a thing for Edge,” Sans says. The words are almost painless. He didn’t get as far as getting drunk, only a little buzzed, but this balcony is a safe bubble, isolated from the real world. Just him and his brother and the stars.

“Why are you telling me obvious things?” Papyrus asks.

“It, uh, wasn’t that obvious to me,” Sans says. “Kinda just figured it out.”

“Oh,” Papyrus says. “Hm. I probably should’ve expected that. You can be dense about these things.”

“Pretty much.”

“So you like-like Edgy Me,” Papyrus says. “Which means you have to leave town immediately in a panic.”

“I wasn’t in a--” Papyrus gives him a look and Sans shrugs. “Okay, yeah.”

“Do you not want to have a “thing” for Edgy Me?” Papyrus asks, using fingerquotes.

“I can’t,” Sans says.

“Why?”

“Because he’s you,” Sans says, a little sharper than he means to. “He’s you from another universe and I’m not like Red.”

“And I’m not like Edge, for all that I call him that silly nickname,” Papyrus says. “We’re different people. We lived different lives. I don’t even look like him.”

“No, but--”

“It doesn’t mean you suddenly want to smooch my handsome visage,” Papyrus says. Sans tries not to make a face at the idea because that’d probably be a little insulting. Papyrus immediately points at him. “See, yes, you made that face you always make. Clearly you don’t think of him as me or you wouldn’t have pants feeling for him.”

“Please don’t say pants feelings ever again,” Sans says.

“I don’t usually have occasion to! But pants are not the kind of feelings that are the problem, are they?”

It’s a direct hit right where it hurts, in the center of what he’s been too afraid to think about. Sans looks away.

Sex is easy. He can do sex. Get it out of everybody’s systems and then move on. Nobody’s ever wanted anything else from him before. Nobody gave him keys or collars or saved his life. Nobody looked at him like Edge does. Nobody made him feel--

It’s terrifying.

“It’s okay,” Papyrus says. “It’s okay to be scared. But brother, this has nothing to do with you and me. This has to do with what you want. Not me, not Cherry or Edgy-- Edge or anyone else. Just because you like him and he likes you doesn’t mean you have to do anything about it if you’re not ready.”

Roughly, Sans says again, “I can’t.” There’s nothing else he can say because he doesn’t know if it would be a lie. He feels petty and fucked up and tired and not worth this goddamn trouble. Can’t is easier. Wanting is dangerous. He doesn’t _know_.

“Sans,” Papyrus says. When Sans looks at him, Papyrus smiles encouragingly. It’s a little hazy on the edges. “Whatever you decide, I’ll support you. I just want you to be happy. Which you deserve to be, no matter what you think.”

Yeah. Just ask Al.

Sans sighs. “Sorry for, y’know. Being a fucking disaster.”

“I like this much better than the thing where you don’t let me help you at all,” Papyrus says. “We can be ffffffudging disasters together.”

“You almost said fuck,” Sans says, suddenly and completely derailed.

“No,” Papyrus says primly. “You’re imagining things.”

“You called someone a dick earlier and now you almost said fuck,” Sans says, delighted. “Holy shit. Hey, Paps, c’mon. It’s just us here. You don’t gotta watch your language.”

“I’m articulate. I don’t need to stoop to using profanity,” Papyrus says. He starts pulling his legs back through the railings of the balcony, which seems to take a lot of concentration.

“Say fuck,” Sans says. “Just once, in my hour of need. I mean, I’m so weak and distressed.”

“You’re _distressing_ is what you are.” Papyrus finally extricates his legs and then sits there frowning at them. “Being drunk is terrible.”

Sans gets up and offers Papyrus a hand. “C’mon, buddy. I’ll make you some bad hotel coffee and you can take a shower. It’ll fix you right up.”

Papyrus eyes him suspiciously. “That’s unexpectedly helpful of you.”

Sans grins. “Say motherfucker first and I’ll get right on it.”

“I disown you,” Papyrus says.

***

The second day goes faster than the first. Sans loses half the morning because after sobering up a little, Papyrus realizes Sans hasn’t slept since they got in the car and insists that he nap. It’s weird without the collar in his hands but he’s sure as fuck not gonna cling to it where somebody else can see. After the third time Papyrus shakes him awake from dreams he can’t remember, looking increasingly upset by whatever Sans was saying in his sleep, Sans gives up on it.

They eat a lot of bacon. They walk up and down the beach for a while. They build a sand castle. Well, mostly Papyrus builds a sand castle while Sans watches and makes jokes so Papyrus huffs irritably and tries not to smile. It’s a feat of engineering, tall and elaborate enough to taunt the physics gods, and Papyrus is pleased with himself. They take pictures and Papyrus puts it up on social media. Papyrus complains happily about the sand that’s gotten between his joints. It’s like they’re back in Snowdin, building snowmen. It’s like nothing’s changed.

Finally, after they’ve wandered back to the water so Papyrus can stand in it barefoot again to try to show it who’s boss, Sans says, “So how’re you doing?”

“A little cold water is not going to stop the great Papyrus!” Papyrus says through gritted teeth.

“I meant, y’know. With everything.” Sans struggles for a second to get the word out. “Gaster. People keep asking how I’m doing but this sucks for you too.”

“Oh,” Papyrus says in a much different tone. Then he smiles. “I’m fine! Absolutely fine!”

“Paps,” Sans says. “You agreed to go on an actual vacation with no notice.”

“I’m a supportive brother!”

“You got drunk last night. C’mon.” When Papyrus just stubbornly smiles, Sans bumps him with his shoulder. “I told you my bullshit. Talk to me.”

Papyrus sighs. “Well, yes, all right. In the interest of fairness, perhaps I am a teensy bit having emotions that are not… nice.”

“Okay,” Sans says, mostly to show that he’s listening. _Fill in the blanks here, bro._ They’ve had a couple talks about what happened when they were kids, and Papyrus seemed to take it well. He didn’t get upset. He listened, asking the occasional armor-piercing question to cut through Sans’s bullshit, and he was calm, and Sans didn’t believe it for a second but didn’t want to force him to talk about it until he had some time to turn it over in his head. It’s a lot to take in.

At his sides, Papyrus’s fingers curl into fists and then deliberately relax. “I am not an angry person.”

“Okay.”

“People mostly mean well and the ones that don’t mean well are just scared and hurt. Everyone does things for a reason, because they think it’s the right thing to do or because they think they have to. All you have to do is say the right words to make them understand.” Papyrus takes a deep breath. “That’s how it’s supposed to work.”

Sans thinks of Edge’s universe. Clover and Al were trying to avenge their brother. Asgore was trying to protect his family, even if they were long gone. Edge and Red and Unundyne were trying to protect their family too. They were starving and desperate and afraid and angry. Maybe someone like Papyrus could have made them understand, but Papyrus wasn’t there and Sans isn’t that kind of person. Papyrus wouldn’t have killed them.

“You’re not wrong,” Sans says. “That’s how most people work.”

Papyrus turns on him. There’s a wounded look in his eyes like someone whose whole worldview got upended overnight. “Then what was Gaster’s reason? What did we do?”

Oh.

“You didn’t do anything,” Sans says. “He was fucked up. You didn’t deserve it.”

“Neither did you!” Papyrus snaps. “We were _children_! Yes, fine, Undyne would have killed the human to take their soul and she was wrong, but she wouldn’t have tortured them for years and years. Who does that to people? Why?”

Because Gaster wanted the information. Because he wanted to learn how to permanently raise HP. Because when Asgore got the last human soul and went to raze the surface, he didn’t want the monsters to lose the war. Because two children nobody would miss were nothing compared to the lives he would save. Because they volunteered. Because he felt nothing for them. Because he could.

“I don’t know,” Sans says.

Papyrus looks away. Almost to himself, he says, “Was there something I could have said?”

“No.” Sans knows that much. There was no perfect argument that would have overridden Gaster’s decision once he made it. “You tried so many fucking times. If anybody could’ve done it, it would be you. But you can’t convince somebody who’s not listening.”

“Frisk could’ve,” Papyrus says. Sans has never heard him sound so bitter.

Sans shakes his head. “Sometimes all you can do is try to minimize the damage.”

Let Papyrus think he means jail instead of a sharpened bone in the back, the judgement hall splattered with blood.

“I don’t want to believe that,” Papyrus says.

“I know.” Sans scuffs his foot in the sand, leaving a groove that the tide will just erase. “Y’know, that thing where you believe that you have to try to reach everybody saved all our asses once or twice. You got the kid to stop killing people. That’s not nothing.”

And then they came back later and killed everybody anyway, but saying that feels like kicking Papyrus when he’s down. For those timelines where they stopped, it made the difference. For those timelines, it meant everything.

Papyrus is quiet for a long moment. “Well, yes, I did do that, I suppose.”

“Right. So I think if you keep trying that, you might get the occasional person who won’t listen but you’ll help a whole lot of people that you wouldn’t if you just don’t bother.” Sans shrugs. “Besides, I already have the whole not trying thing covered. There’s only room for one of us per family, buddy. Don’t start acting like me.”

“Heaven forfend,” Papyrus says. 

A little bit of snark, however weak, is encouraging. A sign of life. Red’s stupid plan to drag Gaster out of the void to beat the shit out of him suddenly has its appeal.

“Tell you what,” Sans says. “I’ll try to believe that I deserve to be happy if you try to believe that you’re allowed to be pissed off about what he did to us. That sound fair?”

Papyrus eyes him sidelong. Then he holds his hand out like Red would for a fistbump, probably trying to avoid a whoopee cushion. “I accept your emotional blackmail.”

Sans bumps fists with him and the contract is sealed. He slips his hands back into his pockets, hesitates when he touches the collar, and then keeps them there. What the hell. The damage has already been done. “Anything else bothering you that you need to get off your chest?”

Papyrus shakes his head. Ruefully, he says, “You are surprisingly comforting sometimes.”

“Thanks. You wanna hear some fart jokes?”

“And then you say things like that,” Papyrus sighs. They stand there looking at the ocean. There are clouds rolling in, casting shadows on the water. “I have work tomorrow morning.”

“I know.”

“We have friends at home. Jobs and a house and things. We can’t stay here forever.”

“Yeah.” Sans gives in to the wayward urge to catch the collar between his fingers, rubbing his thumb over the notches in the leather. “Wouldn’t want to anyway. Nice for a couple days, though.”

“It was.” Papyrus rests his hand on the top of Sans’s head, scritching him gently. “Did it help you make any decisions?”

“Not yet, but I’ll make ‘em eventually.”

“Well, that’s something, anyway.” Papyrus turns away from the ocean to look at him. “Shall we head home?”

“Yep,” Sans says, obnoxiously popping the p. “Can I drive?”

He hates driving but it’s worth it to offer just because Papyrus gives him a look of such naked horror. “No!”

Sans starts picking his way through the sand back to the hotel. “Can I pick the music?”

“Also no! Your privileges have been revoked after the Jimmy Buffett incident.”

“Aw. Can we stop at that mini-golf place we passed?”

Papyrus pauses, caught by the lure of “friendly” competition. His slow smile would put any pool shark to shame. “Why yes, brother. Yes, we can.”

***

It’s after midnight when Sans finally flops onto his mattress, the scene of the crime. There’s sand in his clothes, getting everywhere, but he’s too worn out to get into anything else or even take off his jacket and shoes. Long day. Long weekend. Long, long couple weeks. He can feel sleep dragging his eyes closed.

Nope. Not yet. He might end up dozing off and dropping his phone on his face, but he’s gonna at least try to do the right thing for once. He texts Edge, _made it back okay. hope you like snowglobes._

Edge’ll tell Red. Sans doesn’t have the energy to deal with Red’s bullshit right now, and Edge is…

Yeah. Well. He didn’t answer Edge last time, is all. Just because he’s an emotional trainwreck whose issues are more like a lifetime subscription doesn’t mean that Edge should have to be worried for no reason. Sans isn’t a total asshole.

There’s no immediate response. Okay, then. He sets the phone down and pulls the collar out of his pocket, holding it in his hand. Then he curls up tight on his side, burrowed in the jacket. Hopefully the collar won’t fall out of his hand this time. He’s gotta figure out some way to deal with that that isn’t putting it on.

Funny how he’s pretty much given up on convincing himself he’s gonna give up that nasty little habit for a while. He’s too semi-conscious to bullshit himself.

His eyes are closed for less than a second when the phone vibrates. Apparently Red and Edge’s text timing is genetic. Cracking one eye open, Sans reads the somewhat blurry screen.

_I’m glad you’re home._

Sans feels a warmth in his chest like he took a shot, spreading through him, making him feel soft, fond things. Just from a text message. He’s so fucked.

A moment later, another text comes. _I don’t know what a snowglobe is._

Sans laughs.

**Author's Note:**

> content warnings: Sans has a nightmare about Gaster nonconsensually touching his soul before killing him, alcohol use, discussion of past medical and emotional abuse of children

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [killing me slow](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17845871) by [LyraLV](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LyraLV/pseuds/LyraLV)




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